The problem with AI writing your copy (and why you keep going back to it anyway!)

I know you've used AI to write your copy. You don't have to tell me. I know because I've done it too.

Everyone has.

You're staring at a blank page. You've got about forty-seven other things to do. You've been putting this off for three weeks. There's a button that says it'll write the whole thing for you in thirty seconds. Of course you're going to click it. You're not a martyr.

You type in something like "write an about page for a marketing consultant who helps small businesses" and it spits out five paragraphs that sound vaguely professional. It mentions all the right things.

Services.

Values.

Something about empowering people because AI absolutely loves that word.

You read it back. It's fine. It's definitely fine. It's just not you.

It sounds like it was written by someone who's never met you and doesn't really understand what you do. Which, to be fair, it was. But it's done. It's something. You can always come back and fix it later.

Except you don't.

Because coming back to fix it means rewriting the whole thing and you'd rather stick pins in your eyes. So it sits there on your website sounding like every other business in your industry and you try not to think about it.

Look, I'm not anti-AI. I use it constantly. It's brilliant for getting unstuck. For reorganising things. For checking whether something makes sense. For doing the boring bits so I can focus on the bits that actually matter.

What it's absolutely terrible at is sounding like you.

It can't capture your voice because it doesn't know what your voice sounds like. It doesn't know the weird phrases you use. It doesn't know how you explain things on client calls. It doesn't know the stories you tell that make people go "oh right, yes, I get it now."

It just knows what copywriting is supposed to sound like based on scraping about eight billion websites.

Most of which are also terrible.

So it gives you something that sounds plausible. Something that's grammatically correct and mentions the right things and could technically go on your website without anyone complaining.

It's just got no personality. No voice. Nothing that makes someone reading it think "yes, this person, I want to work with this person."

Your potential clients are drowning in sameness. They're scrolling through websites that all say the same things in the same way. They can't tell any of them apart.

Everyone's passionate.

Everyone's client-focused.

Everyone delivers results.

They're looking for someone who sounds like an actual person. Someone they can trust. Someone who makes them think "finally, someone who actually gets it."

AI can't do that for you.

I see this all the time. People come to me with copy they've generated using AI and they know something's wrong but they can't figure out what. It's not bad exactly. It's just flat. Boring. Generic.

When we start working together I ignore whatever they've written and just talk to them. I ask about their clients. Their work. Why they do what they do. What winds them up. What gets them excited. I get them to explain things like they're talking to a friend who's never heard of their business.

That's where the good stuff is.

Not in the polished professional version they think they're supposed to sound like. In the rambling enthusiastic slightly chaotic version that comes out when they stop trying so hard.

Then I take that and turn it into copy that sounds like them. That makes people want to work with them because they sound interesting. Real. Worth working with.

You can't get that from AI.

You can get something that'll do.

Something that's technically fine.

Something you can stick on your website and tell yourself you'll fix it later.

You can't get something that makes people choose you over everyone else.

And here's the really annoying part. Even if you know all this, you're probably still going to use AI sometimes. Because you're busy. Because writing about yourself is horrible. Because surely it's good enough and nobody really reads this stuff anyway.

They do though.

Your copy is usually the first impression people get of your business. It's what makes them think either "yes, this person gets it" or "meh, I'll keep looking."

You've built something you're actually proud of. You've worked too hard to let it be represented by something that sounds like it came from a content factory.

I'm not saying you can't use AI to help. I'm saying at some point you need to make it sound like you. Or find someone who can.

Because the version of your business that sounds like everyone else? Nobody's looking for that.